Monta Vista senior Justin Hsuing is the winner of the seventh annual Mr. Key Club Pageant, which was hosted by the Palo Alto High School Key Club in the Haymarket theater on Saturday. Junior Justin Robinson was Paly’s representative.

Juniors Alex Liu, Andrew Liu and Molly Chen, along with sophomore Jacqueline Woo, organized the event.

“This [the Mr. Key Club Pageant] is one of the biggest events of the year that everyone in the division looks forwards to,” Alex Liu said.

However, Alex Liu also noted that since this year’s competition had only five contestants compared to 10 last year, attendance was much lower. The date also posed further problems, since the pageant coincided with winter formal dances at schools which normally send contestants.

Contestants participated in six main events: the swimwear competition, the spirit wear competition, trivia, talent competition, formal wear competition and a question and answer session. Each category of competition was evaluated by Key Club members, who rated each contestant to select the final winner.

The pageant also featured special guest acts from Key Club members between events. Paly sophomore Yoko Kanai and former Paly Key Club President Erika Ji both sang in guest acts, performing Melissa Polinar’s “Meant to Be” and Train’s “Hey Soul Sister,” respectively.

Each contestant in the pageant was scored based on his performance, according to Chen.

“There’s a panel of judges, one from each school to provide fairness. There’s also a point system,” Chen said. Chen, who was an emcee for the pageant, admitted that the point system was subject to bias and difficult to understand.

In the swimsuit competition, each participant showed off their stylish beach clothes and their muscles.

For the spirit portion of the pageant, each contestant showed off their Key Club spirit wear and shouted cheers. Some memorable competitors included Hsiung, who wore a tutu, and Lynbrook High School’s Steve Hahn, who wore a full penguin suit.

The trivia competition was in buzzer format similar to Jeopardy. Competitors lined up and ran to grab a penguin, which is the Key Club mascot, before they could answer questions. Cupertino High School’s Chris Dam won comfortably due to both his agility and Key Club knowledge.

The formal wear portion of the competition gave the contestants a chance to show off their style and poise on stage. Several sub-competitions, like a push-up contest, a cheer contest and a poetry duel further tested their abilities.

In the question and answer portion, participants answered embarrassing questions about themselves and were scored for their answers. After that, a push-up contest was held, where Dam outlasted the other participants with 20 push-ups.

After the push-up competition, contestants invented a Key Club cheer and a poem praising Key Club. All contestants attempted to produce haikus, but only Hahn managed to follow the five-seven-five syllable pattern in his poem.

At the conclusion of the pageant, Hsiung was awarded the Mr. Key Club 2011 title, which included winning a sash and a giant penguin mascot. Los Altos’s Gary Yu won the “Hottest Hottie” title, Dam earned “Mr. Congeniality” and runner up and Hahn finished as the second runner up.